BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



that her wants will always be supplied, and her ability 

 to produce heat be uninterrupted. 



But, besides these beautiful adaptations, another use 

 has been suggested. Leon Dufour taught that the 

 larvae of bees are nourished by an ejection into their 

 cells of semi-digested food from the chyle stomach of 

 the nurses, and this idea, unsupported as it is by 

 evidence, has gained all but universal acceptance. 

 Schonfeld* explained the stomach-mouth in con- 

 formity with this opinion, but recent investigations 

 have more than ever convinced me of the erroneous 

 nature of Dufour's theory. Schonfeld at first alto- 

 gether failed to observe that the stomach-mouth' is 

 prolonged into the chyle stomach by a tube contain- 

 ing a layer of nucleated cells (nc, B, Fig. 14), 

 beyond which extends an extremely delicate mem- 

 brane (intima), which Schiemenz is confident can 

 have no other object than to prevent the return of 

 digesting matters into the honey sac, his opinion 

 being that, except when food is passing through it, 

 this tube must collapse completely, being pressed on 

 one side, and flattened. But microscopic examination 

 and experiment have shown me that, although the 

 tube of intima interferes with regurgitation, as Schon- 

 feld is forced to admit, still it may float in the 

 stomach, and preserve its cylindrical form notwith- 

 standing pressure, so that its presence rather makes 

 regurgitation improbable than impossible. Schonfeld 

 has also left unnoticed the down-pointing bristles 

 (/, A and B, Fig. 14), which would, by straining, 



* See translation in British Bee Journal, 1st Tulv nth q Pn f 

 15th Oct., and 1st Dec., 1883. J *' b aept -> 



